now that hint at privatizing veterans hospitals yesterday. the gop attempting to mess with the vets. >> i appreciate you taking a break from counting your rare gold antique coins to join us on tv today. >> gold coins. you know what else? they have chocolate in the middle. >> the great scandal of 2010. thank you, keith. thanks to you at home for staying with us for the next hour. we begin tonight with the great unveiling. house republicans held their bik big take your jacket off photo op today to prevent their agenda for this election year. it was a bit of a flop. not in terms of the photo-op. the photo-op looks awesome. the blue shirts, it's amazing. no problem there. but the reception it received, that greeted it upon arrival was blunt and not positive. their big election year pledge was called, drek and pablum and

full of glaring contradictions. also, milquetoast. those were things from people on the right. those terms were from the most popular, heavily trafficked red wing blog, red state and for the club for growth. if you are in the business of trying to figure out what might happen if republicans win the elections, the most important thing to note is that the pledge is of very little help for mapping out the impact on the country if all these republicans running for office do get elected. we see that with the republican proposals to privatize social security, for example, which we talked about at the end of last night's show. boy did we get a lot of response to that. if you look at what their individual candidates are pledging right now, even if it's not in the official party pledge, the individual candidates say they would like to privatize social security, to hand it over to wall street.

that's what the top-tier republican candidates are promising to do. even if the party doesn't want to put it in their brand-new photo-op brochure manifesto. if you're willing to not just follow the photo-op manifesto and follow what their candidates are promising to do as they are running for office this year, it's not just privatizing social security. for all of this brochures' florid language, they're running on the platform of privatizing everything. if you're over 65, you get public insurance, it's called medicare. tell an audience of people who are on medicare, you would like to take their medicare away from them. see how they react. see what happens. i highly suggest you bring some riot shield with you. also, if you are a veteran in this country, you don't just have public health insurance like medicare recipients do.

if you are a veteran in this country, you have publicly provided health care. the same waive it's publicly provided care in england, for example. veterans have nationalized health care in this country. for all the scariness of that term, that's what we do for veterans and that's what we have done for veterans for generations as a way of making sure we keep our promise to the people who fight for this country. we take a national responsibility for them getting health care. we fulfill that responsibility through the va health system. a nationalized system. no, veterans care is not perfect. but tell this nation's veterans that you want to get rid of va and see what they tell you. the university of michigan surveys americans on their satisfaction with various health care systems. they finds routinely that veterans rate their experience with va care above the rest of the u.s. health system. the 2008 survey found 85% of veterans were satisfied with their va care compared with 77% of people treated in private hospitals. and that's fairly typical.

a study in the new england journal of medicine compared veterans' health care to medicare, which itself is highly regarded the new england journal of medicine study found on 11 measures of quality, veterans facilities proved to be significantly better than medicare. the national committee for quality assurance ranks health care plans. who do they rank number one? they ranked number one is the va. like social security, like medicare, you want to find out whether or not va care works, go tell the nation's veterans that you want to take the va away. go talk to the veterans organizations. see what they think of privatizing veterans' care and ending the va. >> there's not a single veterans group in america from any side of the political spectrum that would support the privatization of va health care. >> paul reikhoff speaking last night on msnbc. despite what the republican party is advertising as we love mom, we love apple pie, there's nothing to disagree with here agenda, here's what their candidates are running on. let's prove it.

here's colorado senate candidate ken bach. >> the veterans administration hospital run by the private sector be better run -- >> here's nevada senate candidate sharron angle being asked if va medical care should be expanded to cover things it doesn't cover now? >> no. not if you're working toward a privatized system. >> in an interview with "the new york times" last week, delaware republican candidate christine o'donnell said one of her priorities if she's elected to the senate would be to to create health care vouchers for veterans. instead of the va, you can buy private care, veterans. good luck. here's the other secret about the agenda of republican candidates that they're really not interested in advertising nationally this year. it's not just the people who are running right now. the republicans who are running

to join the congress that they don't already participate in. the republicans who are in congress now, who are already there, who are in the minority because they lost seats in the last two elections and can't get what they want by majority rules, republicans who are already in congress also want to privatize the va. you'll recall that lots of republicans said they were voting against don't ask, don't tell this past week because they wanted to get their amendments in to the defense bill. didn't have anything to do with the gays. they just wanted their own bills in. what were these amendments they wanted to get in? here's one from oklahoma republican james inhoff. he wants a five-year pilot program to study privatized health care for veterans. republican congressman zach wamp from the c street scandal. he said this in 2008. the va should look at new solutions to health care, like using the private sector. without privatizing the system. you know, privatize it without privatizing it.

personalize it maybe. republican senator richard burr said lawmakers should focus on boosting specialized services for veterans. the reason they were even asked about privatizing health care for veterans is that the last time a republican ran for president in 2008, the reason john mccain got a "d" as in dog rating from iraq and afghanistan veterans of america is that one of john mccain a planks for running for president is that he wanted, like christine o'donnell, a voucher system to privatize the va. >> my administration will create a veterans care access card to be used by veterans with illness or injury incurred during their military service and by those with low incomes. >> john mccain with his legitimate war career, there is a reason that troops abroad donated six times as much money to barack obama as they did to

john mccain in the last election. john mccain has on his agenda to get rid of the va. to privatize the va. is there something wrong with va care? not really. not when you compare it to the rest of the health care in this country. veterans like this. this is true about them wanting to privatize veterans' care and social security and medicare. it is true this is about policy. sometimes in elections it's easier to cover the wacky factor. sometimes it's easier to talk personalities than policy. when republicans talk, they want to stay very far away from all this stuff. this really is it. this is what they're bringing to the table. joe biden said don't compare us to the almighty, compare us to the alternative. this is the alternative. all of their free market ideology which they're happy to talk about in the abstract with the pledge they released today.

all of their free market ideology they are so proud to brag of in the abstract, it has consequences in the specific. and specifically what they want to do is take apart social security and medicare and care for veterans. which is all nationalized to a certain degree and which all works. it's all stuff that people really depend on in this country. it's really all working pretty okay. and they are running to dismantle it. the republicans do not put that sort of thing in their pledge. this is what their candidates are really running on. joining us now is iraq veteran, patrick murphy of pennsylvania. congressman murphy, thanks very much for your time tonight. >> thanks, rachel. i appreciate that. >> is privatizing veterans' care as third rail of an issue as i think it is? to me this seems like a positively nuclear proposal. >> absolutely. and that's why they don't want to talk about it except in republican circles. it is outside the mainstream.

i mean, this is not where the american people -- and i can assure you -- this is certainly not where the american veterans believe the privatized the va -- we need to make sure it's strengthened, not to privatize it and cut it loose. >> who is out there in the government right now or in politics really who is defending these programs? who is talking about how popular these are, who are their cheerleaders? sometimes it seems the people who receive this care as social security beneficiaries or veterans getting va care are left on their own to defend this thing they're benefitting from. >> that's right. that's because, you know, the veterans in america are the majority population. you talk to the veterans that i served back in bucks county, pennsylvania and northeast philadelphia. they love their va care. they want to make sure they have more of it. we went through years and years of the bush administration short-changing the va.

and they were short-changed not by a little bit, by $3 billion. we now get a democratic president and democratic congress and we have increased the va funding at the largest level ever to make sure we take care of these heroes, especially the ones coming back from iraq and afghanistan. to see the republican party try to privatize it and get rid of it is absolutely insane. >> do you agree with what i see as the big picture thing going on, that republicans are essentially trying to run on the abstract idea of free market ideology but they're running away from what the spasks of that mean? they're not willing to spell out what that means in specific policies? >> absolutely. when i won a close race in 2006, the second democrat to hold my seat, not just the incumbent why he should be fired, i talked about why i should be hired, and the timeline in iraq and we should bring our troops home. i talked about how we need to bring jobs here and make things

in america and not outsource jobs, unlike my opponent when he was in, when it was republicans in the house, the senate and the white house when they outsourced jobs and extended bad nafta deals. but this is their agenda. they don't want to talk in specifics. let me tell you what the specifics are. they are to privatize the va. they are to privatize social security and put it in wall street and take that money out of social security, put it in wall street. what would have happened two years ago? the seniors would have been devastated. >> congressman murphy, you're in such a difficult district, difficult district for a democrat. you're in a tough race this year right now. the national conversation right now among democrats is how they can close that enthusiasm gap. how they can get democratic voters to be as enthusiastic and as likely to turn out on election day as the conservative voters who are so motivated this year.

what's your specific approach in your district to make that happen? how are you trying to get out the vote? >> my race and the races around this country are about a contrast. if you want to privatize social security, i'm not you were guy. with medicare, we closed the donut hole. how about jobs? if you want to lose another 8 million jobs, which we did it under the bush administration where he had a republican senate and republican white house and extended nafta and lost manufacturing jobs, i'm not your guy. if you want to make things in america again, i'm your game. if you want to fight unnecessary wars -- i was proud to serve in iraq, but let's face it, the iraq war was a diversion from your focus where it should have been, that's afghanistan. the iraq war cost the american taxpayer $3 trillion. that's $10,000 per person. every man, woman and child. guess what? we haven't paid off that $10,000 per person yet. that's wrong.

we need to make sure when we talk about the wars going on, we're doing it in the right way. i hear the cheerleaders about iran and other places. listen, let's make sure we're doing all our diplomatic efforts before you start another war. that's what you're hearing from the far right. painting that contrast, in my contrast, we brought back 3,000 jobs in bucks county. for the last eight months, we have had job growth in the private sector. every single month. the last three months, by the way, of the bush administration, we were losing 800,000 a month. a lot of people will say let's not talk about the bush administration. i wish i didn't have to. but they're trying to reheat the same economic policies that got us into this mess to begin with. we need to start making things in this country, not outsource them. >> congressman patrick murphy,

giving a master class to democrats to how they should run against republicans this november. >> thanks, rachel. you're a great american. >> the republican party's pledge to america was supposed to reflect the suggestions of america. and it does if by america you mean one very specific lobbyist. that embarrassing bit is next. today marked an important mail stone in this campaign. democrats have avoided bragging about their profound achievements in health care for so long that republicans are claiming the democratic record for their very own despite having opposed it. through the political looking class with gene robinson coming up. f@@

good news for democratic candidates this year trying to figure out how to run on the democratic record. today, republicans started running on the democratic record. so now democrats can just copy them. that's coming right up with eugene robinson.

i want to say to every american that we believe in this contract and these reforms so deeply that we have not only put them in writing today, but that they will be in a full-page ad in tv guide that we encourage every american when that ad comes out, which i believe is october 27th, to tear that page out, to stick it on your refrigerator until january 3rd and join us -- and i want to promise every american -- we will have the same ad at the speaker's desk every day until we meet our obligations. we will begin the session every

day by rereading the ad until we have met our obligations. >> we will reread the ad every day. that was what it was like when the republican party unveiled their big legislative agenda in 1994, the first mid-term after bill clinton was elected president. in this mid-term after barack obama was elected president. unveiling the new gop is a little different. no tv guide this time. nothing for you to tear out of a magazine and stick on your refrigerator. it's much longer this time, 45 pages. if you want to stick it on your refrigerator, you'll need a very powerful magnet. before republicans got it printed up as this pretty brochure, when the draft was sent out, it was a pdf document, it's a party of modern academic life. a lot of us deal with pdf documents all the time. there's one way pdf documents

are uniquely suited not to be used in political life. if you right click and then select document properties, the name that auto populates as the author is the person whose document it was produced on. in politics when you're making a sacred pledge, you want to make it seem that god beamed this down to you and upper a spokesperson for the almighty. it wasn't authored so much as delivered. in this case the right click trick shows that this document the gop delivered is less of a delivery from the almighty but more of a therefory from aig and exxonmobil and comcast. the magic of right clicking the pdf revealed that the new author is a fellow named brian wild, a staffer for john boehner, who is also a former lobbyist for all of the aforementioned companies and more.

he worked for the nichols group, a lobbying group paid more than $740,000 to lobby for aig and for exxonmobil and for pfizer. the reason that is particularly awkward for this political document is because republicans went out of their way with this thing to make this particular pledge seem like it was just the voice of the people. republican congressman mike pence said it would prove that the democratic majority wasn't listening but that republicans will. house republicans will listen and then we'll have an exxon lobbyist write it down. as part of that we're listening to you spin, the whole basis of the republican campaign pledge was their big america speaking out website, giving the impression to anybody visiting that website, whatever suggestion got the most thumbs up votes on the website would become part of this republican agenda.

republicans were merely a vessel for the desires of the american people. but it turns out the desires of the american people as expressed at americaspeakingout.com were for legalizing pot and ending the outsourcing of american jobs to other countries. those are some of the things that turned out to be the most popular ideas, the most thumbs up on the america speaking out website. these stated desires of the american people, that americans aren't going to ignore like that democrat majority does, those desires were not, in fact, beamed directly from americaspeakingout.com through the larnyx of the republicans. legalizing pot, shockingly nowhere to be found in the republican new pledge to america. republicans say nothing about the very popular idea of trying to stop the outsourcing of american jobs. which would seem to suggest two things.

one, who they say they're listening to doesn't seem to be nearly as important as who they actually let the write the thing. and have two, next time republicans decide to come up with a pledge or contract or manifesto, wouldn't it be awesome if the pot lobby got a lobbyist on the inside who could secretly author the whole thing? that i would pay to see in a full-page ad in tv guide? that i would tear out and put up on the fridge. every election year has its

every election year has its characters. this one i think has more than most. this year, part of the country is having a really good exciting time. and the rest of the country is having a often hilarious and often alarming time getting familiar with the cast of anti-establishment tea party folks who have beaten the old guard republicans in this year's primaries. but at the crop of characters, there is one republican candidate who is in territory so uncharted it makes me want to learn a new word that means more uncharted than uncharted. the candidate's name is jim russell. he is the republican party's nominee against congresswoman nita lowey in new york's 18th district. russell's occupation is described by politico.com as a christian conservative author and columnist. but what he wants you to know about you is whether it's natural to have contact with

person of a different race or religion than you. his views detailed in a white supremist journal. in that essay he writes, while liberals constantly yammer about bringing us together, it may be suggested that the biological function of human culture is just the opposite. that is to keep discreet groups apart. he approvalingly quotes old racist arguments from t.s. eliot about what constitutes a society. the population should be ho moggious. what is still more important is unity of religious background. race and culture combine to make any large number of free-thinking jews undesirable. so there's that. then jim russell gets even weirder.

so on weird that i tried sort of practicing today and found i was unable to read the next excerpt without losing my composure. i enlisted kent jones read it for us. >> it has been demonstrated that finches, raised by foster parents of a different species of finch, will later exhibit a life-long sexual attraction toward the alien species. one wonders how a child's sexual imprinting mechanism is affected by forcible racial integration and near continual exposure to media stimuli promoting interracial contact. >> yes, finches, the birds, and interracial contact. major party candidate for congress, ladies and gentlemen. mr. russell also talks about the culpability of media moguls who deliberately popularize

miscegenation and to instill in their children an acceptance of appropriation of boundaries. have you instilled your children with appropriate boundaries today? in a year of extreme politics where there are a lot of extreme us versus them stuff, hi, mr. gingrich, mr. russell may have figured out what it takes to claim the label of extreme this year. the westchester republican party says it's doing everything to get jim russell off the ballot, even though he is their party. he's been openly called a racist and a kook. it should also be noted that same republican party guy who

called jim russell a racist and a kook, said that this e-mail photo-shopping the president the and first lady to look like a black exploitation era pimp and prostitute said of the new york republican candidate who sent this, quote, the new york republican party fully supports carl paladino and stands behind his candidacy 100%. i guess we know where they're drawing the line this year.

over the course of my lifetime i have noticeded that democrats tend to have an inferiority complex when it comes to the process of politics. they definitely like their own ideas better than republican ideas. but they tend to admire the way republicans campaign for their ideas and admire republican tactics and messaging even if they don't like the republican message itself. maybe that is the key to democrats finally figuring out they really could be campaigning on health care reform this year instead of hiding from it.

because it today, republicans started campaigning on health reform. yes, gop lawmakers today pledged in that pledge of theirs to repeal the health care law. that's true. it's plastered all over the document. we hate obama-care. they pledge to institute a lot of health reform policies they have ripped right out of the dreaded obama-care. gop pledge, purchase health insurance across state lines. that is already in the health reform law. gop pledge, ensure access for patients with pre-existing conditions. oh, you mean like what's already in the health reform law? gop pledge, eliminate annual and lifetime spending caps. wonder where they got that idea? that's not only in the health care law, the provision kicked in today. six months after obama signed the dreaded ghastly obama-care into law. they want to get political credit for bringing it back again. the single craziest thing is

that republicans will be able to claim credit for the good democratic ideas on health reform that they like as long as democrats stand aside and let them do it. today, the day insurance companies can no longer stop covering americans because of pre-existing conditions, if you're up on the age of 26, you can stay on your parents' health insurance, the day that health insurance companies can no longer tell you you've exceeded the cap of what your life is worth, on the day all those things became true because of the democratic health reform law, republicans were the only lawmakers in the country campaigning on health care reform. republicans campaigning on the democrats' health reform plan and all the good stuff that's in it. democrats, it's your choice. you can campaign on your accomplishments or you can let republicans campaign on your accomplishments. your choice. 40 days till election day. joining us now is my friend,

eugene robinson, pulitzer prize-winning columnist for the washington post. thanks for being here. >> i'm still struggling to get past miscegenation among finches. >> their desires telling us bad to watch the remake of a fellow. >> you know you can't go there. let's move on. >> he's the candidate. anyway, sorry. common wisdom is that health reform is toxic. it's this third rail democrats won't run on. the only democrats that won't run on it are the ones who voted against it. why are republicans running it? >> that's a better question. many of the elements of the health reform package, in fact, most of the elements of the health reform package, are popular among americans and have always been popular among americans.

if you ask throughout the entire health care debate, if you asked people, do you want the pre-existing conditions like this, do you want children to be able to stay on their parents' policies and no lifetime caps and this and that, they all said, yes, of course they want it. this would be great advances and would make the system so much fairer than it is. so the democrats give them -- give people all of this. and now are afraid to talk about it. and the republicans who must have been paying closer attention to those polls, say, here's something people like. let's put it in the pledge to america. it's kind of crazy. >> do you think then it's not a coincidence that house republicans chose today of all days to unveil this big pledge to america in their shirt sleeves at this lumber yard in virginia? is it a coincidence that they have picked the big unveiling the same day all these popular health care provisions went into effect?

>> i'm not sure it's a coincidence or not. i think their timing actually was really pretty bad. because at the moment they were unveiling their pledge to america, president obama was speaking to the united nations and everyone was could have gone that live. they didn't even get live coverage for their big announcement. so i'm not sure i'm as in awe of their scheduling prowess as i am of the kind of political jiu-jitsu they're doing with health care. it's amazing. you're exactly right. because what they say, we want to get rid of this big government takeover but we want to put all the good stuff back in. of course, we don't want to fund it. but, you know, whatever. >> we want to get rid of the dreaded obama-care and put all of the components of obama-care back into effect. but we want to call them ours. >> right. because you like them. you like them.

we know you like them. democrats don't know you like them, but we know you like them. >> it's amazing to me. the thing not amazing is that republicans are doing this but that democrats are not, and rolling out effective campaigning on health care. let me ask you about democrats' reported decision to not force a vote on middle class tax cuts. to not force a vote in which republicans would presumably vote no on middle class tax cuts. why not? >> good question. the whole build-up has been to force that vote, which seems to me from the democratic point of view very good politics. you have to put the republicans on record as saying, we specifically want to preserve tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. we're not going to vote for your version of this bill. or you make them go along with

it. and you go a long way toward solving some huge, long-term fiscal issues. it seemed to be -- but democrats are always nervous now individually and nervous about keeping their majority together. and i suspect there was a lot of concern about how many democrats might just kind of wuss out. >> amazing to me. let me ask you one last brief question about this, gene. the republican pledge is very clearly supposed to be this year's version of 1994's contract with america. interesting that it got a very hostile reaction from a lot of the right, from places like the red state blogs and club for growth. how important is that? is that just a sign of sort of healthy division on the right as the different factions try to fit it out? or does that mean something more important about how this moves forward? >> you know, that -- for the red

state people, i mean, that kind of confirms what they always thought about the republican leadership in washington, which is that they're much more interested in getting re-elected than in serving what red state and those groups would consider bedrock conservative principles. what i think it does though -- again, if the democrats will take advantage of the opening. instead of just being the party of no, the republicans have come out with all the stuff that if you try to parse it, makes no sense. you know, it makes no fiscal sense. it doesn't make sense in terms of the deficit. you can't make this ad up. so now, the thing to do would be to make them defend it and explain how you extend -- make the tax cuts all permanent and still fix the deficit. how do you do that? if democrats don't start -- now they have a blueprint from which to press republicans on all these issues. and they have to be able to gain ground that way.

so if they don't do that, then we give up. >> yeah. sometimes we give up every day and then we press on through the course of the day and get our hope back. gene robinson, pulitzer prize-winning columnist for the washington post. thanks for joining us. coming up on "countdown," more of keith's excellent, don't miss it special report on the very large businesses that qualify for so-called small business tax breaks. michael moore joins keith next hour. ahead on this show, the man who sold you the bright happy side of mercury in your food, he's back with a shot at first lady michelle obama. that's next.

now it is first lady michelle obama who is in the particularly creepy right wing cross hairs this week and seemingly more to come. we've got details ahead on that.

did you see what happened at the u.n. it today? this is the americans. the american delegation that was representing us at the u.n. today, getting up, taking off their translator ear piece thingies and walking out in the middle of the speech by the president of iran. at one point, you can see they actually sort of do a little awkward turn in their walk-out so they can be sure everybody sees them storming out. they don't want to go out the back of the room, a side door near their seats, they want to

walk out in a way everybody can see them on the iranian president. then everybody else starts walking out too. canada's guys, new zealand, costa rican. the u.n. represents from 27 countries in europe all pied-pipered out behind the americans while mahmoud ahmadinejad kept talking from the little step stool they presumably put up to the podium. when he started to say how most of the world knows 911 was an inside job by the u.s. government. a lot of times diplomacy is so subtle, international relations turn on whether you're guy's dinner at the white house is a state dinner or technically looks like a state dinner. who bows to who and how deeply and what you're wearing when you did it.

points of protocol, these imperceptible slights. except when it's not. it was as satisfying as it was blunt. for all the drama today of walking out on little mahmoud ahmadinejad what got less coverage was something almost as blunt and almost as satisfying but without the dramatic visuals. four years ago our friends in russia said they were going to sell iran a billion dollars worth of missiles that iran said they wanted to use to defend its nuclear facilities. there's a ban being sold of any hi-tech. the decision happened during the bush administration in 2006 and ever since then russia has been hemming and hawing about whether it will do it, whether it will go ahead with selling iran these missiles. last night the u.s. announced president obama secured a clear

unequestion vocal agreement from russia's president that those missiles are not going to iran. that medvedev said it in public. obama got him to call off the deal. no missiles for iran. not as visual as throwing down the ear piece but any insult to that little creep is deepl . ♪ an accidental touch can turn ordinary into something more. moments can change anytime -- just like that. and when they do men with erectile dysfunction can be more confident in their ability to be ready with cialis for daily use. cialis for daily use is a clinically proven, low-dose tablet you take every day, so you can be ready anytime the moment is right. tell your doctor about your medical condition and all medications, and ask if you're healthy enough for sexual activity.

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if the culture wars are back in time for this year's elections which i think they are here's a prediction. the next the ash get, the next nonstory that nonetheless indueses republican base outrage, be the next cultural touchstone is that show how the liberal elitist want to ban

mother's day and pie and all things americans and conservatives need to stand intelligent the anti-american elitist the next big fight is coming. it's on its way and it's about michelle obama and her campaign for healthy eating and exercise. i don't want to give anybody any encouragement. the next round in the culture wars sounds like this. >> get away from my french fries, mrs. obama. first politician that comes up to me with a carrot stick, i have a place for it. and it ain't my tummy. >> that was fox news host glenn beck last weekend at the right nation conference in illinois making his first they came for the french fries joke. it was the second time in a week that he rolled that out in a week when all others on the right got the same idea at the same time. >> get your damn hands off my fries, lady.

if i want to be a fat, fat, fatty and shovel french fries that's my choice. but oh, not so fast any more. because now we have the new fact whether you like it or not, we have government health care now. >> taking the nanny state a new level michelle obama is suggesting what you should feed children. >> it's find if she wants to talk people into eating well, spend her own time and money but i think she wants to spend our time and our money. >> it won't be long after that call -- she talked about what food she's going to fix and how she's going prepare it and where she will get it. that woman will be reported to michelle obama. >> your cooking behavior gets reported to first lady. what you cook gets reported to the president's wife. some kind of food hotline. that's their theory. also something about muslims. if you want culture war politics again, if you want pure us versus them, this is rich territory for the right.

this past week we also spotted this little tweet basically a redirect to an article headlined michelle's war on fat. you'll have to pry these french fries from my cold dead hands. this is war. the tweet that toledo that article comes from the center for consumer freedom which has a hit piece on michelle obama's obesity campaign right there on the front page of its website. does it ring a bell, center for consumer freedom? rick berman. of course the lobbyist, pr guy who makes up fake nonprofit groups that promote stuff like tanning beds are good for you and don't worry about mercury in fish. berman has tried sell the idea upping the minimum wage is bad for people who make minimum wage somehow. he also hates the humane society. yes, the humane society.

rick berman's m.o. is to create fake citizen groups and muddy the waters with fake science to give the impression that maybe transfats clean out your arteries. second hand smoke is delicious. drunk driving not that bad. happy 30th birthday mothers against drunk driving may you be a thorn in rick berman's side to come. given what rick berman's m.o. is you're forgiven if you thought of rick berman and his black is white, day is night down the rabbit hole corporate p.r. strategy last week when you heard the corn refiners corporation was trying to change the name from fructose syrup into corn sugar. because corn sugar sounds delicious. right on cue, rick berman joined in on the conservative website "the daily caller."

why let facts get in the way of what your shady undisclosed big business clients want. another campaign mr. berman is working on is sticking up for factory farmed chickens. after the recent be giant salmonella outbreck attributed to chickens whose life conditions do not bear thing slightest weak stomach contemplation. a slick for profit opportunist like rick berman takes on the first lady it sound like money. but when glenn beck and other fox news lineup teams up with him, it's almost like you can feel them sending a little test to see if they can get something started launch a new talking point. you can feel it coming can't you? in three, two, one -- that does it for us tonight. we'll see you again tomorrow night.